Sales Management is about Relationship Management

During the early years of my career, I actually moonlighted into sales for more than 4 years then I went back to my first love, i.e., Human Resource Management. I remember being asked on an interview for my first sales Job for Xerox: What’s common between Human Resource Management and Sales Management? I answered confidently: People Management. Further, I said, in HRM you manage people within the organization, while in sales you manage those outside the organization. I got the job, and so my immersion in sales management begun.

My answer during that interview was immediately tested during my sales calls. I realized that selling is building relationships. You do not simply shoved products to your potential customers. They expect that you provide value and credibility more than what your product offers. And this can only be accomplished through relationship building.

How many SME’s (Small and Medium Enterprises) know that basic sales principle? Or narrowly, how many sales people know selling is about relationship building?

John Huggart, founder of Sales Positive, believes that sales is a profession and should be recognized as such. Further, he believes that the cost of winning and keeping customers is an investment and management process that must be measured and managed. His approach lies on the basic principle of customer relationships building. To this end, he emphasizes the core value and discipline of aligning all efforts and investments towards assessing and refining the sales processes and activities to produced maximum results and profits.

His consultancy outfit provides strategic sales consulting and services that enable companies to grow and lift profits. It also offers Sales Audit that provides a comprehensive review of sales capability, functions, and marketing alignments; and a Sales Survey that scan your market for sales challenges that need to be addressed. The results derived from these exercises then become the basis for practical and profitable recommendations for change.

Getting sales, higher than the previous month, will always be any business’ primary goal. Who wouldn’t? Because in a market-driven society we quickly learn that we either grow or outsell our competitions, or we die and close shops. We lose our edge if we allow our competitors to win and keep our customers while we sit on the fences figuring-out how they did it. It’s time for a paradigm-shifting: get your customers by building relationships with them.